A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

Ivth Branch, Sobriety in worldly Cares.

IVth Branch, Sobriety in worldly Cares.

The next Branch is Sobriety or Moderation in worldly Cares. These also besot the Mind, and deprive it of the Sense of spiritual things. By a strange Fascination and Enchantment, our Care becometh our Pleasure, and Men grow quite drunk with the World, so that they are always scraping and raking here as if their whole time were given for nothing but getting Wealth.

The next Branch is Sobriety or Moderation in worldly Cares. These also besot the Mind, and deprive it of the Sense of spiritual things. By a strange Fascination and Inchantment, our Care becometh our Pleasure, and Men grow quite drunk with the World, so that they are always scraping and raking here as if their whole time were given for nothing but getting Wealth.

First; What this carking and worldly Care is that must be moderated. The Scripture doth not only allow but require an honest Diligence: It is a Command as well as a Threatening; In the Sweat of thy Face thou shalt eat thy Bread, Gen. 3.19. The Grievousness and Burdensomness of Labour falls under the Threatening; but the Labour it self is a Command, as moral as any of the Ten. The Apostle saith, Phil. 4.6. Be careful for nothing; but he doth not say, Do nothing. The Scriptures would not have us to be idle and careless, they commend the diligent Hand. To let Children and Family shift for themselves, were not only unchristian, but unmanly; we see the very brute Beasts provide for their young Ones. Diligence is one of the means by which God provideth for us: But yet though the Scriptures do allow a diligent Care, yet they forbid a carking Distrust. There is [Greek or Hebrew], a Care of Diligence; and [Greek or Hebrew], a Care of Diffidence; the first is a Duty laid upon us, the second is a Sin. Faith is painful, but not distrustful. It is represented by the Emblem of a pair of Compasses, while one Foot is fast in the Centre, the other wanders about in the Circumference: So the Heart is fixed in God by Faith, it depends upon him, and looks for the Success and Issue of all from his Blessing, though the Hand in the mean time be employed in the Use of Means. Certainly God allows us careful Provision against all visible Evils, though they be to come; as Joseph stored the Granaries of Egypt against the dear Years. But not to distract our selves with a Supposal of future Contingencies; therefore our Saviour saith,